"This is all very mysterious," Jasmine commented.
"Yes, miss, so it is, I'm sure," Mrs. Vokins agreed. "But then, as my friend Miss Butt says, life's very mysterious. And I said, answering her, 'Yes, Miss Butt, and death's very mysterious.' And she said, 'You're right, Mrs. Vokins, it is.' Miss Butt's very worried. Oh yes, I can tell you she's very worried, because she's given up the kitchen which I was using for her three times a week. If I might presume to give advice as a married woman, which I was before my poor husband died, I'd advise you to pack up your box and come along with me by the afternoon train, which my brother-in-law will meet with his cab. You need have no fear of familiarity, miss, because he was a coachman before he was a cabman, and was hounded out of his job by one of these motor-cars. Inventions of the Devil, as I call them."
"But does Selina want me to help her look after my poor uncle?"
"I'm sorry, miss, to appear stand-offish, and it's through no wish of mine, I'm sure, but Miss Butt's last words to me was: 'Keep your mouth shut, Mrs. Vokins.'"
Jasmine was too deeply moved by the thought of the poor old gentleman lying in pain at Rouncivell Lodge, and too much touched by Selina's kindly thought in enclosing her fare, to delay a moment in answering her request. In any case it was obvious that she would have to leave the Deanery almost at once, and it seemed an interposition of providence that she should have such a splendid excuse to escape from the ridiculous and humiliating position in which Edward's folly and Harry Vibart's thoughtlessness had placed her.
It was dark when the cab pulled up a hundred yards away from the gates of Rouncivell Lodge, and Jasmine hoped that the necessity for all this caution would soon be finished, because she was finding the gin-scented hushes of Mrs. Vokins that filled the interior of the dank old cab trying to her fatigued and hungry condition. However, there was not long to wait before Selina's voice, which always sounded to Jasmine as if the housekeeper had been eating a lot of stale biscuits without being able to obtain a drink of water after them, greeted her.
"Such goings on!" she snapped, and then turning to the cabman went on in her dry voice: "Perhaps, Mr. Vokins, you'll have the goodness to carry Miss Grant's trunk round to the back entrance without ringing."